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April 13, 2012

Ok, so for my first proper post on here I have decided to review the ZIIIRO Gravity Ocean watch I have had for a few weeks now. No, its not specifically web design related, but this is probably the most uniquely designed watch I have ever seen. Read on to learn about the build of the watch and its practicalities when using it in everyday life.

The ZIIIRO Gravity Design

I think it is appropriate to talk about what drew me into buying this watch to begin with first. In short it was its astonishingly unique and minimalistic design. I have never seen anything like it before and was instantly intrigued to see how it worked.

The concept is actually very simple. The timepiece itself consists of two gradated rings, with the centre being thicker than the outside. The solid colour end of the wider inside ring points to the current hour, and solid colour end of the thinner outside ring points to the current minute. Its that simple! In the picture above the time is just approaching 12 O’clock.

The combination of these two rings creates a striking effect that is very pleasant to look at. In my case I choose ZIIIRO’s Ocean colour but there are a good number of carefully picked colours to choose from.

ZIIIRO’s Build Quality

In total, with postage from Hong Kong, this watch cost me £102.61 after its price had been converted from Euros. As watches go this is a fairly reasonable price, especially considering the amazing design, although you have to remember this watch is very minimalistic with no bells and whistles, so for this price I was still hoping the quality would be good. ZIIIRO doesn’t let down.

One of the selling points of the ZIIIRO Gravity are its changeable straps. The timepiece and the strap are actually separate with the former able to be popped out from the strap by pushing from behind. For this sort of thing to be pulled off nicely there needs to be a lot of precision. If not, you can be left with nasty gaps at the joins that will quickly fill up with dirt and dust. Luckily the Gravity pulls it off amazingly, and the seam between the front face of the strap is virtually non-existant!

A fair amount of pressure is required to remove the timepiece from the strap and push it back in, so there is no chance you are going to find yourself looking at an empty strap one day, and when you push the face back in, it will reach its final resting place with a reassuring click letting you know it is in all the way.

The face will only fit back into the strap one way around, making sure you don’t put the watch back in skew whiff and inherently arrive to all your meetings later that day at the wrong time. This is thanks to the crown on the face. As well as being used to set the time, it also acts as a neat little guide and slots into a small cutout on the inside of the strap.

The face itself feels very solid and has some good weight to it, and the glass feels strong and is perfectly clear.

The strap is made from a brushed metal (I presume its stainless steel) encased in a tactile matt rubber. To place it on your wrist it easily stretches over. I have what I would class as pretty small wrists, but even still the watch fits very nicely without wobbling around too much, and there is no chance of it falling off accidentally.

The Practicalities Of The Gravity

After owning this watch for near enough a month now, I feel like I am in a good position to comment on the practicalities of actually using the Gravity as a watch.

After a couple of days getting used to it, I found I was able to tell the time at a glance just like you would on any more conventional watch. The face itself has no markings around the edge, so this definitely isn’t a watch you would want to be using for timing a 100m sprint, but at a glance you can easily read the time accurate to five minutes, and if you spend a little longer looking, I would say you can be accurate to about 2 minutes. More than accurate enough in most situations.

One question I have been asked quite a lot while wearing the watch is “How do you know which side is the front?”. Its a good question, but again it is something ZIIIRO thought of. On the side of the strap that faces your body, you will find ZIIIRO’s logo slightly raised on the rubber of the strap. Keep this on the inside of your wrist and the watch will also be the correct way around. Easy.

So far the Gravity has kept the time very accurately. The watch arrived from Hong Kong pre set to my local time in the UK, and I haven’t had to change it since. ZIIIRO impressed me here because they even took into account that we would be moving into British Summer time while the watch was in the post!

Overall I am extremely pleased with this watch. The build is great, the design is absolutely amazing, and since getting the watch I have had nothing accept nice comments about how unique and clever it is. It doesn’t take long to learn how to read it, and once people are shown how it works, they have always been won over by its simplicity.

From what I gather ZIIIRO is a fairly new company, but even still they have a number of other models all with the distinct ZIIIRO style. You can find this watch and the others on their website www.ziiiro.com

About Jozef Maxted

I am Jozef Maxted, a young freelance graphic and web designer, based seconds away from the beach in Camber Sands, East Sussex, UK. I am completely self taught, although I am currently studying Multimedia & Digital Systems at Sussex University, near Brighton.